Several prominent acts that claim residency in the United Kingdom actually call Canada home.

Gem Rolls

Then there's Scotsman Jem Rolls, who spent the winter in Winnipeg with a local actress, but keeps his fringe address in Edinburgh.

All have changed home countries for love of a good woman.

"That and a good doughnut," cracks Sage-Passant, who is in town to perform his solo show Manners for Men at MTC Up the Alley. "We don't have Tim Hortons in England."

"I'd like to think I was one of the first war brides, maybe after Alex Dallas," says Gibbs, who is debuting The Further Adventures of Antoine Feval here at The King's Head. "The fringe tour is kind of romantic. I think there will be more war children than war brides."

Gibbs first caught the eye of his future wife, fellow fringe performer Nicole Barnett, in Winnipeg in 1997 and before they reached the western end of the Canadian fringe circuit, they were planning to live together. They have resided in Toronto since 2002.

"When we met it was clear quite early we would end in Canada," says the 37-year-old Gibbs, known for such hit shows as Gibberish and The Power of Ignorance. "I knew we were going to have kids and I knew I'd rather make Canadians than English people."

The father of a one year-old son, Beckett, Gibbs has thought about taking out Canadian citizenship but hasn't got around to it and isn't sure he will.

Screwed and Clued burst onto the fringe festival scene as larcenous lager louts in Shootin' Up Shakespeare in 1998. They kept coming back on the Canadian circuit in various combinations ever since. Early on Sage-Passant got it in his head that he wouldn't mind living here some day. "I have always enjoyed the culture in Canada," says the 32-year-old part-time actor who also counsels homeless youth. "I find people are more open-minded. There is more aggression in England culture you don't get here. In the arts, people are more willing to try new stuff."

Winnipeg was the group's first fringe festival and Sage-Passant says that being here on the decade anniversary is special. (He had intended to present Manners for Men, a monologue about what makes a man, in Canada in 2006 but tore the ligaments in his ankle, forcing him off his feet and the circuit.)

It was meeting his wife that brought him to Canada permanently, away from family and friends.

"I miss them, not the country itself," he says.

"It's a nice way to meet a country," says Gibbs.

kevin.prokosh@freepress.mb.ca